Kairos and Informative Assessment: Rethinking the Formative/Summative Distinction in Nebraska

Abstract

In this article, the author argues that educational policymaking, teaching, and assessment are most effective and ethical when they are carried out with attention to local contexts. He explores this concept through a consideration of Nebraska's unique School-based, Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System (STARS), which created a statewide policy framework that honored local teaching and assessments, including classroom assessments. The conceptual linchpin of STARS was a rethinking of the traditional distinction between formative and summative assessments and fostering of adaptive leadership at all levels of the system, most important, the classroom level. Using the concept of kairos to describe appropriateness for the occasion at hand, the author discusses the ways in which STARS offered an alternative to high-stakes standardized testing. Moreover, he argues that this approach holds important lessons for those who wish to understand the power of informative assessment, even in an educational world that tends toward standardization.